I’ve asked people to
explain to me why it is that Pink Floyd is so great, and I always get a
response along the lines of “If you have to ask, you’ll never understand” or
some such arrogant arts student type response.
In other words, they don’t
fucking know either.
I can tell you why
Motorhead and Iron Maiden are the greatest bands of the early heavy music era,
or why the Ramones and the Stooges did more to change the face of punk rock than
any of that 77 UK shit or why Hip Hop wouldn’t be where it is today without
Public Enemy and Wu-Tang Clan. But when I want to know what Pink Floyd gave me,
I get looked at like I’ve just raped someone’s bed ridden King Charles Cavalier
puppy.
Any of the things that
get all too often attributed to the Pink Floyd name I can see elsewhere beforehand
in bands like the Beach Boys and the Beatles and at the same time with the
Doors.
Also in an interview ‘The
Edge’ from U2 stated that he bought his first delay pedal after hearing the
opening guitar chords to “Dogs” from the Animals
record.. That alone is an offence worthy of some serious hard time.
Look, everybody will tell you
they appreciate the genius of Pink Floyd. You probably went through a "Big
Pink Floyd Phase" at some point in your life. Yeah this "phase"
is known as your first year studying Graphic Design at University when you ate
mushrooms once a week.
If you don’t take hallucinogens
you should not be listening to Pink Floyd. Simple.
Their music serves no purpose
other than to serve as the soundtrack to your group tripping experience in a
dark room. If you're on psychadelic drugs you obviously aren't going to want
listen to say, heavy metal or anything particularly rocking. After all you are
mentally unstable and might react by taking off all your clothes and running
down the street screaming bloody murder after think your girlfriend was a
werewolf mid coitus. You also don't want to listen to anything laid back with
complex lyrics like say some Bob Dylan, because words don't actually make any
sense to you in your current state. So you go with Pink Floyd as completely
neutral background music that will not upset the balance of your night of mind
expansion.
Have you ever listened to Pink
Floyd in a completely sober mind state? Like say cruising around in your car on
a Friday afternoon jamming out to the classic rock station? Their music truly
is shit. I hate when I'm listening to a solid block of classic rock, and I hear
that "CHA-CHING!" cash register noise. Then “You fucking cock
juggling thunder cunts! I was just in a solid groove after some Creedence and
Skynyrd and then you have to put Pink Floyd's "Money" on”. I hate that fucking song along with
pretty much every Pink Floyd single that comes on the radio. Yeah, the idea of
rebelling against the establishment and protesting your educational experience was
kind of unique in the early 1950’s, but by the time “The Wall” had come out,
Elvis Presley had well and truly knocked down those walls with his unstoppable pelvis,
and even if it was something interesting to hear again, I definitely do not
need to randomly hear a bunch of creepy British kids singing a hook about it on
repeat.
"Wish You Were Here" is
one of the weirdest sounding love songs ever written. Pretty much the only
tolerable Pink Floyd single is "Comfortably Numb." This song however,
is infinitely better when sang by Van Morrison rather than by the members of
Pink Floyd, so they lose points for that.
Of course people will argue that Pink
Floyd is not a band that should not be judged by their individual singles.
"You gotta get like the whole album experience maaaaan."
Yeah well I've listened to both
Pink Floyd masterpieces "The Wall" and "Dark Side of the
Moon" all the way through and they are both complete excrement.
First of all there are very few
rock albums that I am willing to listen to all the way through, and generally
they all serve some sort of purpose that involves fun. You can leave the album
on for an entire party, or a BBQ, or a road trip, or a drunk drive home.
If you are listening to a Pink
Floyd album, you are only enjoying yourself if you are tripping in a dark room
watching a light show. You can't throw on Dark Side of the Moon at an Australia
Day party and enjoy yourself. Pink Floyd's songs are all extended dark, gloomy
jams that continuously "build" without ever reaching much of a
climax. Roger Waters whispers song lyrics in a creepy voice that sounds like the
demonised version of Michael Jackson from those court tapes is lurking in your
closet. Pink Floyd is basically the soundtrack to you looking up at the sky and
realizing the apocalypse is coming as the dark clouds gather and lightning
flashes. So.. just what you need to get the party going..
Syd Barrett – The Genius. The
God.
Man, what the fuck? Are you for
real? What did he even do for the band?
The dude did one and a half
records with the band and his
work was hardly iconic.
It reminds me of things
you'd hear on a Weird Al Yankovich record.. Sure, Syd was a strong influence
but, saying that the band wouldn’t sound how they did without him is like
saying Dio formulated the sound for Black Sabbath or Sammy Hagar for Van Halen.
In the end he couldn’t
handle the drugs and turned out to be a psychopath that shaved his eyebrows off
and hid in a cabin for almost 40 years until he cashed out.
Every time an artist
dies young (which for all intents and purposes, Syd Barrett died in 1970) there's
always the people "It's so sad, he had so much more to give."
How do you know? Maybe he was out of shit. How
do you know?
He's done. He got all
the money, he did all the drugs, he fucked all your holes. And that's the celebrity
dream, and when you're done with that you go.. "Oh, that's why they call
it a dream. — It's bullshit, I'm still empty." How do you know what any
artist had left? How do you know if Jimi Hendrix hadn't had died he wouldn't
have wound up doing duets with Meatloaf
at the AFL Grand Final right now?
Anyways, Pink Floyd were one of
the first bands to… I don't know… lock themselves in a studio with a year's
supply of LSD and experiment with weird production effects (Oh shit, Brian
Wilson did that first? Fuck!). So they will always be considered
"revolutionary" in some manner.
After all, if you are the first
band to do anything weird you are always looked at as an "innovator"
even if your fresh, revolutionary sound is worse than a Jamie Kennedy punchline.
Let’s just admit however, that nobody is ever in the mood to randomly rock out
to a Pink Floyd song. Nobody has the patience to sit and listen to an entire
boring and gloomy Pink Floyd concept album. If you do actually
"enjoy" Pink Floyd for extended periods of time, it's time for you to
stop spending your Tuesday night dropping acid in your mothers basement while
staring at a lava lamp and get a fucking job already and stop sitting there
talking at me about Led Zeppelin, the Grateful Dead, Yes or Phish because my
violent opinion won’t be all I give you next time.
01/02/13
<Also, I'm aware that people aren't stupid and will pick up on the "Maybe he was out of shit" being a reappropriated Doug Stanhope bit>
